Actually kinda thought the Steel numbers dropped in the  last season or two and the Hos have definitely dropped off quite a bit since their great  runs a few years back.
(sound familiar ?)
-More doom and gloom.
Geeezzzzzh == hate to sound so negative bout a place I have invested much time and money  into  and  care so much about.
 Guess its not so much negativity  as it is concern.
 

How about last years epic run. Could it be that MOST of the two year olds ran last year decreasing the numbers of three year olds front this year. Couple that with a cold winter and maybe the twos not running as much along with poor flood year returns  and this year would equal a poor run.

Well thought possibility Clint, did see lotta shorts last season.

While I have not participated to any great extent in the madness known as river salmon fishing for a long time, when the runs were first returning, I was out there from early August until mid November at least 2 times a week, and for a couple of longer trips usually in that span as well.  The conventional wisdom about the run that developed back then was, you might see a fish here and there in August especially if there was rain or a release, again, with good water conditions it might be worth while Labor Day weekend, it would build through September, with a few steelhead mixed in, and it would peak Columbus day weekend, with the chromers starting to be a significant portion of the run after that.  So maybe it is still just  late, everything else was this spring summer and fall. As to the night runners, maybe they were all that escaped and spawned in past years, I know when I was at the ballpark in Late September last fall for a couple of hours, nothing swimming up through there in daylight was going anywhere but to Connecticut or Jersey, etc.  Natural selection, remove all the day runners, let the night runners get upstream and successfully spawn, pretty soon it is all night runners.
 
As to numbers stocked, where when, why speculate when all you need to do is read the biologist reports out of Cape Vincent on the DEC website.
 
Also, it is not just government that repeats scientific work, it is pretty standard that if the finding of a study is in any way controversial, the study gets repeated in an identical way to validate it.  The fin clip was repeated for a number of years, but according to DEC at the SOL's last spring, they are moving on to Cohos.
 
L13 

Again this is only based off of the lake reports posted on the Internet so other that " reports " it's not based on scientific data.
Out on the lake the majority of salmon being caught with consistency were 2 year old class fish. It was reported that class fish was plentiful and healthy. How that high catch rate this summer will effect next years run will again , yet to be seen.
Not having been to the river myself and only going by Internet chatter, I also believe there was a far lower " run " or amount of returning fish this season.
Yes I know they are there and mostly moving at night but over all it does not seem like a river full of fish as some are used to.
Are they late , still yet to come in big numbers or is it over ?
For the most part from my worthless opinion, what you see is what you got. I'd have to say that the fish are there and there won't be any magical massive push of thousands of fish just waiting to run late .
Maybe a big school of coho ( didn't see many being caught on lake ) might make an appearance but for the most part the last of the kings will just filter in as stragglers .

However I think the steelhead season should be a very good one and only hope the meat hunters got enough salmon to allow the trout fishers to have some uncrowned ( as possible ) to do their thing .
Browns :
Really feel its going to be another down year on the browns in the river. Only based on the fact that the lake guys hammered them hard due to the lack of salmon out there. LOTS of browns hit coolers on boats all summer.

Finally,
I don't know why they stopped the fin clip on hatchery kings but read they are going to be implanting chips above their nostrils instead of the clip. Makes no sense to me to put a higher costing chip into thousands of fish but I guess it's a better method of collecting data .

Had a hell of a 30th party this weekend and got some hunting to attend to this upcoming then I'm ready to wipe the dust off the rods and sink some flies :)

Tuna, I've seen a lot of browns and heard a lot about good numbers being caught since even early. So don't count them out just yet ;). Happy 30th to you and yours!!! And yes I agree with you that it is a low numbers year. Last years run was mostly big fish from my attempts and I had consistent attempts from august 8th til later September. If you want to throw the two year fish theory in to play I would venture to say that the most epic year/run ever in 2012 may have sucked up a lot of the 3 and 4 year fish for our current 2014. I have been pretty keen on salmon since 1991 and I think I can honestly say that so far this is probably the worst Iv e seen... Long time guides I've fished around and have known for years are saying the same. 99 was similar but there were a lot of coho that year... The movement of fish this past Thursday was a pretty good one that lasted through town in to Saturday. I believe its a fizzle from here on

Hate to say it Andy but kinda agree- barring a late miracle run we got what it is.
Heck its only 10 months till August and a new round of great expectations anyhow.
Weekend reports after I left were poor- will be back for a few days of leaves and fishing anyhooo this week .
Might hafta forego my conga revulsion and fish in the zones to get my fix. lol
 Would love to be in my favored  vines but the traffic was so heavy around  there lately that I didn't even bother to venture in- perhaps later this week if the mobs are down.